Optimal Mughal trade capital.

[ep1c_fail]

Greetings all,

I have been playing a casual game as Afghanistan, with the intention of forming the Mughal Empire. I'm currently delaying taking the decision to fulfill some of the Afghan missions. My objective is to conquer all of the India and Bengal, as well as the Persia node.

The question of trade seems a little tricky though. I had thought about putting my trade capital in Persia and pulling all the wealth from across India, but I doubt I'll have enough merchants. Can anyone suggest an optimized trade capital/strategy for this run?

Ideas so far:

Aristocratic,
Influence,
Offensive
Planning Religious/Humanist/Admin next


Progress so far:

Spoiler

 

[Sidolowka]

Greetings all,

I have been playing a casual game as Afghanistan, with the intention of forming the Mughal Empire. I'm currently delaying taking the decision to fulfill some of the Afghan missions. My objective is to conquer all of the India and Bengal, as well as the Persia node.

The question of trade seems a little tricky though. I had thought about putting my trade capital in Persia and pulling all the wealth from across India, but I doubt I'll have enough merchants. Can anyone suggest an optimized trade capital/strategy for this run?

Ideas so far:

Aristocratic,
Influence,
Offensive
Planning Religious/Humanist/Admin next


Progress so far:

Spoiler

Conquering Samarkand/Tibet and TC'ing them should give you two merchants; if you're feeling a bit more expansive you can charter in a company in Zanzibar and conquer your way into 50% provincial trade power. The Zanzibar merchant is basically free since if you're collecting in Persia you want trade to flow away from Zanzibar, not to it. Other potential nodes that are easy to conquer would be Ethiopia, Siberia, Burma, Basra and Hormuz.

 

[Lord Romanus II]

Persia is ideal if you don't plan on eating the Ottomans. Force trade from Hormuz-Basra-Persia and all the Indian trade will go through Samarkand into it. Also, follow the other TC ideas in order to get a few extra merchants.

 

[Vinje]

I would second the advice to create trade companies, Tibet is basically a freebie if you can get the province with the center of trade.

 

[blakasuta]

In my current run, collecting in central Doab is more profitable than in persia because Russia and Mamluks will pull the money. It is difficult to have more than 50% trade power in persia eventhough you almost have all lands in persia. Meanwhile you can have almost 100% trade power in central doab if you have all of India. From there you can pull trade from bengal, etc

 

[Kapitalisti]

The English Channel naturally. But failing that, Persia or Samarkand depending on your conquests.

 

[holyvigil]

Chartering horde land is really smart since it takes so little gc and you just want the merchant.

Persia is the best node it allows you to spawn global trade.